Painted lines and other markings on the pavements are important safety devices for guiding pedestrians, aircraft, road vehicles and other modes of transportation. At night, or during heavy rainstorms, fog, snow, ice etc., there can be major problems in trying to view these markings that often apparently completely disappear. This leaves pilots and motorists confused, with difficulty in maintaining their position in relation to obstacles or other vehicles.
Elongated lighting systems are generally known. With regard to some examples, the elongated lighting system is typically in the form of a linear extrusion with encapsulated light emitting diodes (LEDs). Such lighting systems are installed in roads, airport runways and the like as a pavement inset, forming a lit guiding system for vehicles and people which reduces confusion and increases safety by making critical markings on the pavement visible in most weather conditions.
Elongated lighting systems usually require a channel support system that is embedded in or on the mounting surface and which accommodates the elongated lighting system. If used, the channel support system must protect the integrity of the elongated lighting system, permit easy installation of the elongated lighting system and, if necessary, permit repairs to be carried out.
Elongated lighting systems with LEDs are known. Examples of such systems are described in Canadian patent application 2 182 548, published Mar. 1, 1997, and Canadian patent application 2 264 886, published Mar. 12, 1998. Such systems are integrally formed with LEDs connected to a pair of electrical conductors by bus elements, all embedded in an extruded plastic material that completely encapsulates the LEDs and bus elements. The lighting systems are manufactured by feeding bus elements and circuitry with the LEDs to an extruder and co-extruding the elements and circuitry with a thermoplastic material to encapsulate and embed the bus elements and LED circuitry.
Alternative elongated lighting systems are required, especially to provide for flexibility in lighting, both as to direction and provision of semi-continuous lighting, and to permit the lighting to be embedded at or above the mounting surface as may be required.